


The (extra)Ordinary Life of Stan Lee

by eldee



Category: Fantastic Four (Movieverse), Incredible Hulk (2008), Spider-Man (Movieverse), Wolverine (2009), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Gen, marvel_crossing 2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-31
Updated: 2009-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldee/pseuds/eldee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marvel Movie cameos - Stan Lee has a story of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (extra)Ordinary Life of Stan Lee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [destroythemeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/destroythemeek/gifts).



> Warnings: Marvel owns it... AND THIS IS FICTIONAL. This is not Stan Lee's real life. I do not own Stan Lee. I don't even know him! And I'm not making any money off this.
> 
> Notes: Have I mentioned this is FICTIONAL? Because it really is. Based on the cameos of Stan Lee, as if he was the same character in all the films. (Well, some of the films. I did what I could!)
> 
> Thank you to lonelywalker for the beta. Hope you enjoy, destroythemeek!

Growing up, Stan Lee thought of himself as an ordinary child.

There were always rumours of extraordinary people, fascinating beings, thrilling adventures. But these tales weren't much more than children huddled on the school grounds, and hushed whispers of mad stories meant to scare each other.

 _Fibs_ , his mother called them. Fanciful and untrue stories. Stan mustn't worry about them.

He didn't worry about them, but he did fantasize over them. He thought them fantastic. On scrap paper, using a pencil, he'd roughly sketch pictures of the supernatural beings he'd heard stories about, imagining what they'd look like, what they could do. And every night he'd go to bed with stories in his head of mysterious powerful beings fighting off the horrific bad guys.

He always slept well, because the heroes kept the boogie men out of his closet and from under his bed.

***

When he grew up and finally graduated from high school, Stan Lee decided to become a writer. His mother told him he should write fiction, as his head was full of stories and people that couldn't possibly exist anywhere, but that were quite entertaining. (She didn't think so herself, it worried her a little bit, but Stan had entertained a guest or two of theirs in the past years.) But Stan didn't agree - he wanted to report on true stories. _Factual things, Mother!_ Get the truth out there, so to speak.

His mother nodded her head. It was a relief to hear him insist upon such things.

She was less pleased when, a few months after he'd left home, an envelope came from Stan. In it was a clipping from that national supermarket tabloid with a headline reading, "Space aliens pose as everyday people!" Reported by Stan Lee. And, with it, his own personal doodle of what the alien might have looked like.

She really wished he would have stuck to fictional writing.

***

Stan enlisted in the army. It was the right thing to do, in dark times like these. He was young and capable, and so he went off to war. He imagined it was what his heroes would do.

And even then, he'd heard whispers. Great, powerful, and strong soldiers. Two of them. They possessed superhuman strength and they couldn't be hurt or even killed. No one knew who they were, couldn't give out names or even descriptions, but it was believed they were out there. Fighting.

And they were fighting for their side. And this gave Stan a strength of his own, and the will to make it through. They would be okay.

***

Once back from the war, Stan returned to his love of writing, and he did make a name for himself. He was quite a legend, in some circles. He _was_ insistent on writing about the extraordinary things that happened in everyday life. Some people believed him - not always the most stable and upstanding of people, although he did receive pleasant correspondence from housewives. That had been completely unexpected. But, for the most part, it was the teenaged boys and young men, so much like he had been, obsessed with the extraordinary, who followed his works. It was great to be surrounded by such kindred spirits.

Although - and he had difficulty admitting this - over all, nothing too extraordinary had happened to him personally.

Stan followed the leads, spoke to people, wrote stories about the strange occurrences that happened. Increasingly, there were reports of people with special powers. There was a particular story of interest, of a man who could move metal with his mind. That one came up more and more, and Stan always tried to imagine just what sort of fellow a man with those amazing abilities would be like.

***

The water spouting out of the water hose was going in the wrong direction. As in, it was going up towards the sky rather then down to Stan's parched lawn.

This was Stan's first real, personal experience with the extraordinary.

He wasn't sure what to make of it. He'd gone years and years, following the out-of-ordinary stories, always missing the events by moments or hours and sometimes even days. But he was convinced something would happen to him - or at least, around him. But it never had, and he and his reporting were becoming a bit of a joke. He'd carried on as long as he could, and never had problems with selling stories to the tabloids, but that wasn't what he wanted to be known for. Changing times required him to change as well. He'd put the writing and his transient lifestyle to rest, and retired to a nice home in a nice neighborhood, and was toying with the idea of making his stories fictional, as his dear departed mother had suggested.

And here, in his settled suburban life, was where he personally brushed with something special, something _more_.

He wished his first thought had been a little more, "Ah-ha! Finally!" and that he'd rushed around, trying to find out where this unusual water spouting power had come from. But, mostly, he stared at it in surprise, but he did wonder. He suspected the house down the street with the strange, staring little girl. The one that once told him the things in his mind weren't so make-believe and he shouldn't believe the others who said he was crazy. He wondered how she had known what he was thinking, but figured she'd somehow heard of him from an older brother or cousin or maybe even her father had once been one of those boys years ago who'd followed his writing.

But his thoughts quickly turned from the weird little girl to the metal man, when he noticed all the cars on the street had been levitated, and then dropped suddenly. It'd been years since Stan had thought of him, but here it was. Proof!

After the cars fell, and the water flowed in the right direction, Stan went inside his house and sat at his kitchen table. He pulled out the old scrapbook his mother had kept for him. She may not have fully approved of his life's ambition, but she proudly collected his stories and kept them for him. He poured over these old stories for an hour or two, but then shook his head and put them away.

Nowadays, water floating up to the sky just wasn't the most newsworthy story. He knew that better then anyone. It was a little bit disappointing for Stan.

***

It was only a decade or so before the scrap book came out again.

As soon as the story of the "Mutant Menace" had leaked to the world, Stan had known. Stan had known that, all those years, he'd been right. There were gifted and special people who could do the most wondrous things. And it was time for Stan Lee to write about them again.

Unfortunately for him, the rest of the world didn't see it that way. They didn't see it as wonderful, they didn't care if it was genetics and natural evolution and that this was exactly the way things should be. Stan Lee's writings weren't as popular in reality as they had been in believed-fiction. But he believed the stories needed to be told, the _truth_ needed to be told. There really was a man who could control metal with his mind, even if he was one of the bad ones. Really bad ones. Stan had envisioned him different(ly), from the tales of old, but perhaps something had changed him to make him this way. Stan wanted to find out, even if no one else could see beyond the horrors that were happening now.

Stan even saw one of the mutants up close and, uh, a little too personal perhaps. It was true, he had been a bit shocked when he'd seen that mutant emerge from the water on the beach. He'd stared along with everyone else. But his staring was different. It was in wonder, and amazement, rather then fear and disdain. Didn't they see? This bloated, squishy (and, okay, rather naked) man was exactly as he should be. And that was wonderful.

Stan Lee resolved to never give up on telling the stories.

***

J. Jonah Jameson did not like Stan Lee.

Stan Lee was too sympathetic to Spider-Man, and J. Jonah Jameson did not like Spider-Man. Therefore, he did not like Stan Lee.

It was not what sold stories. Not at the _Daily Bugle_. Spider-Man was no hero.

Even though Stan Lee had seen it with his own eyes. He'd pulled that little girl out of danger, and then watched as Spider-Man tried to save them all. Spider-Man was no menace. He was a superpowered person who was saving the day. Spider-Man _was_ a hero.

J. Jonah Jameson refused to see it that way.

So Stan Lee took his story somewhere else. And never stopped believing that one man could make a difference.

***

Now, Stan Lee had made a name for himself. With his writing, of course. He was fairly famous, in a way. Infamous may be the correct word. He had moved back to New York City a few years ago, before Spider-Man's appearance even, as it had already become a hot bed of supernatural and extraordinary activity. Some may argue it always was, but it almost seemed a centralized point now. New York was always a place of wonder, but in the new millennium, it was a place of superpowered wonder.

Especially now, with the Fantastic Four up front and center in the news.

Theirs wasn't an occurrence that Stan Lee had reported on in the old days. Everyone knew the story about the 'freak' accident in space (though Stan hated to think it that way), and it was something so very recent, in comparison to the old and hidden secret of the mutant race. So this was right up Stan's alley, of course. Well. Almost. They didn't try to hide who they were, they didn't keep it secret, there really wasn't any breaking story or hidden agenda for them. Johnny Storm himself had no problems whatsoever with talking to the media; in fact, he seemed thrilled to do exactly that.

That was new. And it was, pardon the pun, _fantastic_. Stan liked this, because he always believed that truth should be right out there, for all to see. He approved of it, through and through, and secretly believed it was trailblazers like himself who had pushed hard to bring on this new mindset.

That didn't mean the Fantastic Four owed him in any way, of course. They didn't. Not even, apparently, with an invitation to the Big Event of the Year - Reed and Sue's nuptials. (Talk about being public, with all the paparazzi all over that one.) Stan Lee was not hurt when turned away at the door, he was not.

Though he always suspected J. Jonah Jameson had something to do with it.

***

What possessed Stan to move to Milwaukee, he'd never know. That was almost it, he thought - possessed. It was if he _belonged_ there, was destined to be there. And so that is where he retired, where he was supposed to be.

But he would not give up, of course not. He was using his retirement time very effectively and writing a book. Writing a book reflecting on the old days, when things were secret and how they were kept so, and why. How reporting on the fantastical was a whole different ballgame entirely.

He believed it was important. People needed to know these things, they mustn't be forgotten. And so Mother's old scrapbook became an invaluable resource.

(It was auctioned off, recently, to a private collector. Worth quite a lot, it was said. There are theories on who bought it, of course, as it is believed to be an invaluable part of mutant history.)

It was in Milwaukee that Stan Lee met his end. For a ordinary guy, in an ordinary place, it was quite an ordinary death. The obituary said it was a blood clot. Quite fitting for a normal guy.

Of course, the tabloids reported an entirely different story. Something about gamma sickness, on the same page as the reports of a large green monster in Brazil.

'Nuff said.

 

~ end


End file.
